Kansas Republican Politics

Thursday, March 23, 2006

"You wouldn't believe how desperate Democrats are for a mission."

"You wouldn't believe how desperate Democrats are for a mission."-Bruce Reed, president of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council -- March 22, 2006

That's what the Democrat leadership has to say about their plan for the future, that is their lack of a plan for the future.

Mr. Reed is co-author of a new book, with Congressman Rahm Emanuel, called "The Plan", which will lay out their Party's plan for the future. The book is due out by Labor Day, it is so far from hitting book shelves that you can't even buy it on Amazon yet.

There are a slew of books coming out from Democrats all promising a plan for the future, at KRP we can't wait to find out what the long awaited plan is.

Wednesday, March 22, 2006

Amending the Constitution

"With a 66-58 vote, the House killed a proposed constitutional amendment that would have blocked the judiciary from interfering with the Legislature’s power of the purse. The vote was 18 votes shy of the two-thirds majority required for constitutional amendments.

The amendment, which would have had to be approved by voters, would state that neither the executive branch nor the judicial branch can force the Legislature to set spending levels, except for specific reasons already in the law.

The state constitution already says the power to appropriate lies with the Legislature. But some lawmakers say more is needed to prevent the Supreme Court from interfering with budgeting, after the recent ruling by the court ordering the Legislature to spend more money on schools."

So this is how Governor Kathleen Sebelius wants to pay for the State's education bill, with gambling. How the state can buy land, pay to build a casino and bring in enough money to fund an increase in education funding in six months is a mystery to me, but that is what the Do Nothing Governor wants to do.

Gambling could bring in more money for the state, in fact it could eventually make a nice contribution to funding education, but tying her demands for state run casinos to this year's education funding is wrong and irresponsible.

The Governor's efforts to bring more gambling to Kansas is not a problem in our eyes, but needlessly holding our children's futures hostage to get her unrelated demands certainly is a problem.

Perhaps the Governor Sebelius could kill two birds with one stone. She could force school children to build and work in the State Casino to show them how bad life can be for kids who don't finish school. She could just have them sit and watch the people of Kansas lose money at the State Casino so they can better understand how poor people who don't understand statistics get screwed out of their hard earned money by gambling.

Of course that plan would require creating three or four new school districts for each casino, hiring a superintendent and ten or so administrators for each of the districts.

Thursday, March 16, 2006

The Do Nothing Governor

Kansas Governor Race has a good post about the concealed carry bill pending in the Kansas Legislature.

Will Governor Sebelius veto the bill? Well, that would require her to decide to be Governor for five minutes.Sebelius vetoed similar legislation in 2004, it will be interesting to see if she sticks by that decision, or if she has an election year conversion and allows the bill to become law.

Saturday, March 11, 2006

Barnett on Fiscal Responsibility

"Barnett continues, "Kansas once had a proud history of low deficits and fiscal discipline. The sound principles of fiscal restraint and responsibility have been thrown out the window and substituted for a credit card under the current governor. Just like families and businesses across the state, we will not spend money we don't have.""

Unfortunately under Governor Kathleen Sebelius Kansas's debt load has skyrocketed, leaving future Kansans with a huge bill for the spending that she wanted but couldn't pay for.

Friday, March 10, 2006

Democrats Can't Do Better

"Yet somehow the Democratic Party still can't do any better than "America can do better."

"You can do better" is what you say to a dim child whose grades were even worse than expected. Is this really the Democrats' message to the nation: that we don't need to be quite as pathetic as we now are, though excellence is certainly beyond our reach?

This slogan speaks not of hope but of hopelessness, of scaled-down ambitions, of dreams deferred and dreams denied.

It's the smallness of it that kills me. This nation began with a dream — a crazy, risky, breathtaking dream of freedom, justice and equality. Sure, we've never truly achieved that dream, but for much of the last century, it's been the Democratic Party that has helped keep that dream alive. So how can it be that, today, Democrats don't seem to stand for anything at all?

Part of the problem is ambition and cowardice, which together make a lethal combination. Too many would-be Democratic leaders think that "playing it safe" is the way to go. They're fine with criticizing the administration, but the minute they take any flak themselves, they go scurrying back into their holes. In place of a willingness to take risks and speak from the heart, they offer a craven and misguided dependence on polls, focus groups and "expert strategists.""

Tuesday, March 07, 2006

What Has Barry Done Lately?

Last weekend Democrat poster boy Barry Obama came to speak to a group of Democrats in Topeka, because of poor planning some of them had to watch Barry's speech on TV in another room.

For most of his life Senator Obama was known by his family as Barry, then he decided to enter politics and decided Barry was a little too plain so he decided to start going by Barack, KRP is kind of a traditional blog, so we will stick with Barry, if that's okay with you.

Last year Barry gave a good speech at the Democrat National Convention and the Dems decided that a young, kind of ethnic Senator with a funky name is just what their party needs.

Now Barry is a good figure head for the Democrats because he is good at giving speeches, good at sounding compassionate, but bad at coming up with ideas, a perfect fit for today's Democrat Party. Now don't get me wrong, Barry is clearly for bunnies, sunny days, rainbows, good schools, clean water, apple pie and not executing innocent people, he has clear stands on the important issues of the day. As a charismatic leader Barry doesn't bother with the silly issues like Social Security, the deficit, or the War in Iraq.

Barry is hard hitting, he is strongly in favor of uniting our nation and bringing people together, not dividing them.

So Barry got together with some other Democrats they know they don't like George Bush, but don't know what they would do differently. They know that if they could have traveled through time, and knew what they knew today, they would have opposed the war back then. They know they don't like the deficit, but don't have the guts to say "tax increase". They know they are for something called "Democrat Values" but none of them will admit what Democrat Values mean for public policy.

In the halls the activist whispered the forbidden phrases "tax increases for the rich" which starts at about $32,000 in Kansas, universally bad health care for all, removing testing standards from state schools. The activists what they want to do but try as they might, Barry, Dennis and Kathleen just won't admit it.

So Barry did what Barry does, he gave a nice speech and played the golden boy, he sold his tie to a rich Democrat for $7,500 and got back on the plane.

Good job Barry, another week down, no policy ideas from the Democrats.

Monday, March 06, 2006

Barnett Opposes Sebelius Education Plan

Senator Jim Barnett, Republican candidate for Governor, is voicing his opposition to the plan being debated in the legislature, which has now picked up support from Governor Kathleen Sebelius.

According to Barnett:

"The bills that have passed one house this session and the education billthe Governor has crafted behind closed doors puts the state budget in thehole over $800 million dollars by 2009," stated Barnett. "The only way topay for this spending is with tax increases or state-owned gambling. And IdonÂt believe the people of Kansas want either."

"The governor's proposal is a Trojan Horse. It may be attractive on theoutside but has an unpleasant surprise hidden within higher taxes andstate-owned gambling."

"Kansas is at a crossroads. Down one road is a real future with morefunding for our schools, targeted tax cuts for taxpayers, business providingmore jobs, and a government that lives within its means. Down the otherroad is the false promise of a state government on a spending spree, withhigher taxes and state-owned gambling as the only way to pay the tab."

Barnett makes a compelling case that the expansion of government and the soaring debt load that unfunded government spending requires have hurt business development in Kansas.

The Governor, well the Governor was busy at a Democrat Party fundraiser with Barry Obama this weekend and could not be reached for comment.

Since making education a central part of her 2002 campaign for Governor Sebelius has had a less than stellar record of well, doing anything about education. Two years ago she proposed a tax increase that the legislature decided would be bad news for the Kansas economy.

Two years since her last attempt at education, two legislative sessions and a Supreme Court case later, and Governor Sebelius has no clue what to do to improve education in Kansas.